CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)

Interview

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COOPER: Congressman McCarthy also said history will be very kind to those who oppose impeachment -- oppose impeachment, "I think Adam Schiff will have to answer for a great deal," he said.

Joining me now is the Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. Chairman Schiff, do you worry that you will have a lot to answer for? Because, I mean, this report for the first time lays out a case against the President accusing him of obstructing the impeachment investigation.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, I think the President is really the one who has a lot to answer for, and as we laid out in this report, the evidence is quite overwhelming that the President of the United States used the power of his office, $400 million of taxpayer military assistance to help an ally fighting the Russians as well as a desperately sought meeting in the White House to coerce an ally into doing his political dirty work, to doing these investigations that he thought would help his reelection.

The President will have to answer for that, and we will have to decide here in Congress whether this is what the founders had in mind when they provided a remedy to a President that is violating the public trust and endangering the national security.

COOPER: Today in your press statement, you had a very stark message to your Republican colleagues, essentially that if they're willing to let President Trump stonewall Congress like this, not giving documents from the White House, the Office of Management and Budget, State Department, that would fundamentally alter the balance of power between the branches of government for the worse. Basically in the future if there's a Democratic president, I mean, this could backfire on the Republicans.

[20:35:00]

SCHIFF: Well, without a doubt. And I think they need to think long and hard about this precedent that they would set if they're willing to say or do as Mick Mulvaney suggested, and just get used to it. Just get used to a president saying I will not honor a single congressional subpoena, and I particularly won't honor them if they're investigating wrongdoing or misconduct, malfeasance, even impeachment worthy misconduct.

If the Republicans are prepared to take that position, then they are inviting abuse from a president of either party. And this is a danger that the founding fathers warned us about, which is an excess of factionalism, factions of what they called the political parties and here if because of an allegiance to the party or the person of the president, they're going to betray their oath, they may very well rue the day that they did.

COOPER: The phone records, which were revealed in this, new details revealed showing Devin Nunes, the Ranking Member on the House Committee allegedly having phone conversations with Lev Parnas, when did you become aware of these phone calls? I mean, did you know during the hearings that these had occurred?

SCHIFF: You know, I can't go into specifics about when we acquired certain records, but we have known for some time of these contacts, and obviously they are concerning. We know that in the words of Dr. Hill, the President was having people do a domestic political errand for him, that errand being chasing dirt on Joe Biden, using the power of his office and taxpayer resources to try to coerce Ukraine into doing that.

If there were members of Congress that were also part of that domestic political errand for the President and using taxpayer resources to accomplish it, that's a problem. Now, our focus is on the President's conduct and those who were helping, assisting, and enabling the President in his abuse of his office in violation of the public trust. But if there are members of Congress that are engaged in light conduct, that's a serious problem as well.

COOPER: The phone records, again, that were revealed in today also show apparently obscured dash one phone number that Giuliani called. "The New York Times" is now reporting that you're investigating if that number is the President himself. Can you confirm that? SCHIFF: Well, we can't confirm yet who that dash one number belongs to, but certainly there was indications in the trial of Roger Stone that when he was communicating with the President, it would show up in phone records as a dash one number.

But here you have Rudy Giuliani in communication with the Office of Management and Budget, in communication with the White House, and you also have presidential conduct in the form of tweets and other actions around the timing of different communications. And so, we still have a lot of work to do in terms of identifying precisely who Giuliani was talking with and about what at what times of this chronology.

But even in the absence of that, the evidence is overwhelming that the President was using Giuliani to coerce Ukraine into these investigations. That's documented in text messages, witness testimony, but nonetheless, we continue to chase down other leads and these phone records provide other leads.

COOPER: So you are still investigating that particular phone call. You said you couldn't confirm that it was the President's number, I understand that. But you are -- that is -- can you confirm that you are investigating that?

SCHIFF: We certainly are investigating that. And look, Rudy Giuliani had only one client in the administration, and that was Donald Trump. So, who is he talking to in the course of this smear campaign against Yovanovitch? Who is he talking to in the pursuit of these political investigations in Ukraine?

There are certainly circumstantial evidence as to who those numbers might belong to in OMB, obviously Mick Mulvaney deeply involved in this scheme, but also the President of the United States.

COOPER: Vice President Pence also comes up in the report, and I just want to read this for our viewers. It says, "Ambassador Sondland raised the issue of the hold on security assistance. He told Vice President Pence that he was concerned that the security assistance had become tied to the issue of investigations and that everything is being held up until these statements get made. Vice President Pence nodded in response, apparently expressing neither surprise nor dismay at the linkage between the two."

Now, Vice President Pence through his spokesman had said that the Vice President, "never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Burisma or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based upon potential investigations.

I don't know if they were parsing words by saying the Vice President never had a conversation. In your report it's saying that the Vice President just nodded. I guess you could argue that's not a conversation if he's not actually saying something, but is your committee's report alleging that the Vice President is not telling the truth there or do you think they're just being cute.

[20:40:06] SCHIFF: We are reporting what Ambassador Sondland testified to, and this is an issue that we are also working on further evidence of, but this was the direct testimony of Ambassador Sondland that he raised this issue with the Vice President that everyone was in the loop and that includes the Vice President.

He raises this issue immediately before the Vice President is going to talk to Zelensky. Sondland knows this issue is going to come up. It's already in the press about how the military aid is being held up. This is a primary concern of President Zelensky.

And of course, Vice President Pence is already aware of this because it was in his briefing book, that July 25th call. He already knows about the President wanting these investigations, presuming he reads his own briefing books, which I think we can expect it because he is apparently a diligent reader of those briefing books.

So that is the evidence that was presented, but we continue to follow additional evidence along that line, which I'm not able to itemize. But obviously if the Vice President is being told this by Ambassador Sondland and has no reaction to the information, it's clearly not coming as a surprise to him.

And I do think you have to be very careful about how these administrations officials are parsing their words. After all, the Secretary of State Pompeo parsed his words to give the misleading impression that he wasn't really aware of what was in the call between President Trump and President Zelensky, and we would soon find out he was actually listening in on the call.

COOPER: Chairman Schiff, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

SCHIFF: Thanks Anderson.

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